James R. Mirick sets the record straight on things he cares about

American Mercenaries and the Surge

I’ve previously posted on the expensive and wretched performance of private security contractors currently engaged by the US government in Afghanistan. I’d like for a moment to take a look at what these contractors — in this case, essentially mercenaries — are up to in Iraq and what that means to us. I’d like to especially look at Blackwater USA. Never heard of them? Yes you have — you just weren’t paying attention. It was two Blackwater contractors who were ambushed and killed in Fallujah in 2004, the ones left hanging from the bridge. And just this week five more Blackwater contractors were killed when their helicopter (belonging to Blackwater, not to the Army) was shot down during the Baghdad operation.

In a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, Jeremy Scahill of the Nation Institute wrote:

“At last count, there were about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, of which 48,000 work as private soldiers, according to a Government Accountability Office report. These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are an undeclared expansion of the scope of the occupation. Many of these contractors make up to $1,000 a day, far more than active-duty soldiers. What’s more, these forces are politically expedient, as contractor deaths go uncounted in the official toll.”

Blackwater has, among many others, a contract worth $300,000,000 to provide “diplomatic security” in Iraq. Well, maybe today they were just a little far afield of their usual run. But there they were, in their private helicopter, right in the thick of it. Make no mistake, these aren’t “guards;” they are highly trained mercenaries with their own agenda and their own profit-and-loss ledger.

Now in fairness, it was Blackwater personnel who first moved into New Orleans to begin to provide policing and security in the aftermath of Katrina, when the New Orleans Police Department deserted like rats, and the pols in Baton Rouge sat around passing wind and looking for somebody else to come in and get their hands dirty, and the Feds had Brownie On The Job. But is this what we really want? Political and operational incompetence at all levels, so we bring in contractors? Have we privatized everything? We do have the National Guard, except — whoops — they’re mostly in Iraq, with their equipment, which isn’t coming back.

The problem here is one of scale and scope. Armored cars, OK; security guards at refineries and office buildings, OK; specialized police-operations trainers, OK. But then there’s Blackwater: a 7,000-acre private military base in North Carolina, 20 (well now maybe 19) aircraft (apparently not all corporate transports), and literally tens of thousands of soldiers (excuse me: security professionals) on the payroll. On our side, at least for right now. But that’s the real problem, isn’t it? Who will control this Frankenstein, if it starts going off on its own?

Remember, these guys don’t report to the Pentagon, not directly; they’re contractors. And unlike our Armed Forces, if they don’t like things, they can just walk off the job — how’s that for leverage?

Will our President be their master? I don’t know, these people are loaded pretty well into his head. At the Blackwater command center in rural North Carolina, there are some rooms that are pretty much just cubes and desks, ready for occupation in the event of an emergency, a carefully-planned framework for a sudden need for troops and coordination.